CHAPTER IX--A BOAT
But first I was to prepare more land, for I had now seed enough to sowabove an acre of ground. Before I did this, I had a week's work at leastto make me a spade, which, when it was done, was but a sorry one indeed,and very heavy, and required double labour to work with it. However, Igot through that, and sowed my seed in two large flat pieces of ground,as near my house as I could find them to my mind, and fenced them in witha good hedge, the stakes of which were all cut off that wood which I hadset before, and knew it would grow; so that, in a year's time, I knew Ishould have a quick or living hedge, that would want but little repair.This work did not take me up less than three months, because a great partof that time was the wet season, when I could not go abroad.Within-doors, that is when it rained and I could not go out, I foundemployment in the following occupations--always observing, that all thewhile I was at work I diverted myself with talking to my parrot, andteaching him to speak; and I quickly taught him to know his own name, andat last to speak it out pretty loud, "Poll," which was the first word Iever heard spoken in the island by any mouth but my own. This,therefore, was not my work, but an assistance to my work; for now, as Isaid, I had a great employment upon my hands, as follows: I had longstudied to make, by some means or other, some earthen vessels, which,indeed, I wanted sorely, but knew not where to come at them. However,considering the heat of the climate, I did not doubt but if I could findout any clay, I might make some pots that might, being dried in the sun,be hard enough and strong enough to bear handling, and to hold anythingthat was dry, and required to be kept so; and as this was necessary inthe preparing corn, meal, &c., which was the thing I was doing, Iresolved to make some as large as I could, and fit only to stand likejars, to hold what should be put into them.
It would make the reader pity me, or rather laugh at me, to tell how manyawkward ways I took to raise this paste; what odd, misshapen, ugly thingsI made; how many of them fell in and how many fell out, the clay notbeing stiff enough to bear its own weight; how many cracked by theover-violent heat of the sun, being set out too hastily; and how manyfell in pieces with only removing, as well before as after they weredried; and, in a word, how, after having laboured hard to find theclay--to dig it, to temper it, to bring it home, and work it--I could notmake above two large earthen ugly things (I cannot call them jars) inabout two months' labour.
However, as the sun baked these two very dry and hard, I lifted them verygently up, and set them down again in two great wicker baskets, which Ihad made on purpose for them, that they might not break; and as betweenthe pot and the basket there was a little room to spare, I stuffed itfull of the rice and barley straw; and these two pots being to standalways dry I thought would hold my dry corn, and perhaps the meal, whenthe corn was bruised.
Though I miscarried so much in my design for large pots, yet I madeseveral smaller things with better success; such as little round pots,flat dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, and any things my hand turned to; andthe heat of the sun baked them quite hard.
But all this would not answer my end, which was to get an earthen pot tohold what was liquid, and bear the fire, which none of these could do.It happened after some time, making a pretty large fire for cooking mymeat, when I went to put it out after I had done with it, I found abroken piece of one of my earthenware vessels in the fire, burnt as hardas a stone, and red as a tile. I was agreeably surprised to see it, andsaid to myself, that certainly they might be made to burn whole, if theywould burn broken.
This set me to study how to order my fire, so as to make it burn somepots. I had no notion of a kiln, such as the potters burn in, or ofglazing them with lead, though I had some lead to do it with; but Iplaced three large pipkins and two or three pots in a pile, one uponanother, and placed my firewood all round it, with a great heap of embersunder them. I plied the fire with fresh fuel round the outside and uponthe top, till I saw the pots in the inside red-hot quite through, andobserved that they did not crack at all. When I saw them clear red, Ilet them stand in that heat about five or six hours, till I found one ofthem, though it did not crack, did melt or run; for the sand which wasmixed with the clay melted by the violence of the heat, and would haverun into glass if I had gone on; so I slacked my fire gradually till thepots began to abate of the red colour; and watching them all night, thatI might not let the fire abate too fast, in the morning I had three verygood (I will not say handsome) pipkins, and two other earthen pots, ashard burnt as could be desired, and one of them perfectly glazed with therunning of the sand.
After this experiment, I need not say that I wanted no sort ofearthenware for my use; but I must needs say as to the shapes of them,they were very indifferent, as any one may suppose, when I had no way ofmaking them but as the children make dirt pies, or as a woman would makepies that never learned to raise paste.
No joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine, when Ifound I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire; and I hadhardly patience to stay till they were cold before I set one on the fireagain with some water in it to boil me some meat, which it did admirablywell; and with a piece of a kid I made some very good broth, though Iwanted oatmeal, and several other ingredients requisite to make it asgood as I would have had it been.
My next concern was to get me a stone mortar to stamp or beat some cornin; for as to the mill, there was no thought of arriving at thatperfection of art with one pair of hands. To supply this want, I was ata great loss; for, of all the trades in the world, I was as perfectlyunqualified for a stone-cutter as for any whatever; neither had I anytools to go about it with. I spent many a day to find out a great stonebig enough to cut hollow, and make fit for a mortar, and could find noneat all, except what was in the solid rock, and which I had no way to digor cut out; nor indeed were the rocks in the island of hardnesssufficient, but were all of a sandy, crumbling stone, which neither wouldbear the weight of a heavy pestle, nor would break the corn withoutfilling it with sand. So, after a great deal of time lost in searchingfor a stone, I gave it over, and resolved to look out for a great blockof hard wood, which I found, indeed, much easier; and getting one as bigas I had strength to stir, I rounded it, and formed it on the outsidewith my axe and hatchet, and then with the help of fire and infinitelabour, made a hollow place in it, as the Indians in Brazil make theircanoes. After this, I made a great heavy pestle or beater of the woodcalled the iron-wood; and this I prepared and laid by against I had mynext crop of corn, which I proposed to myself to grind, or rather poundinto meal to make bread.
My next difficulty was to make a sieve or searce, to dress my meal, andto part it from the bran and the husk; without which I did not see itpossible I could have any bread. This was a most difficult thing even tothink on, for to be sure I had nothing like the necessary thing to makeit--I mean fine thin canvas or stuff to searce the meal through. Andhere I was at a full stop for many months; nor did I really know what todo. Linen I had none left but what was mere rags; I had goat's hair, butneither knew how to weave it or spin it; and had I known how, here wereno tools to work it with. All the remedy that I found for this was, thatat last I did remember I had, among the seamen's clothes which were savedout of the ship, some neckcloths of calico or muslin; and with somepieces of these I made three small sieves proper enough for the work; andthus I made shift for some years: how I did afterwards, I shall show inits place.
The baking part was the next thing to be considered, and how I shouldmake bread when I came to have corn; for first, I had no yeast. As tothat part, there was no supplying the want, so I did not concern myselfmuch about it. But for an oven I was indeed in great pain. At length Ifound out an experiment for that also, which was this: I made someearthen-vessels very broad but not deep, that is to say, about two feetdiameter, and not above nine inches deep. These I burned in the fire, asI had done the other, and laid them by; and when I wanted to bake, I madea great fire upon my hearth, which I had paved with some square tiles ofmy own baking and burning also; but I should no
t call them square.
When the firewood was burned pretty much into embers or live coals, Idrew them forward upon this hearth, so as to cover it all over, and thereI let them lie till the hearth was very hot. Then sweeping away all theembers, I set down my loaf or loaves, and whelming down the earthen potupon them, drew the embers all round the outside of the pot, to keep inand add to the heat; and thus as well as in the best oven in the world, Ibaked my barley-loaves, and became in little time a good pastrycook intothe bargain; for I made myself several cakes and puddings of the rice;but I made no pies, neither had I anything to put into them supposing Ihad, except the flesh either of fowls or goats.
It need not be wondered at if all these things took me up most part ofthe third year of my abode here; for it is to be observed that in theintervals of these things I had my new harvest and husbandry to manage;for I reaped my corn in its season, and carried it home as well as Icould, and laid it up in the ear, in my large baskets, till I had time torub it out, for I had no floor to thrash it on, or instrument to thrashit with.
And now, indeed, my stock of corn increasing, I really wanted to build mybarns bigger; I wanted a place to lay it up in, for the increase of thecorn now yielded me so much, that I had of the barley about twentybushels, and of the rice as much or more; insomuch that now I resolved tobegin to use it freely; for my bread had been quite gone a great while;also I resolved to see what quantity would be sufficient for me a wholeyear, and to sow but once a year.
Upon the whole, I found that the forty bushels of barley and rice weremuch more than I could consume in a year; so I resolved to sow just thesame quantity every year that I sowed the last, in hopes that such aquantity would fully provide me with bread, &c.
All the while these things were doing, you may be sure my thoughts ranmany times upon the prospect of land which I had seen from the other sideof the island; and I was not without secret wishes that I were on shorethere, fancying that, seeing the mainland, and an inhabited country, Imight find some way or other to convey myself further, and perhaps atlast find some means of escape.
But all this while I made no allowance for the dangers of such anundertaking, and how I might fall into the hands of savages, and perhapssuch as I might have reason to think far worse than the lions and tigersof Africa: that if I once came in their power, I should run a hazard ofmore than a thousand to one of being killed, and perhaps of being eaten;for I had heard that the people of the Caribbean coast were cannibals orman-eaters, and I knew by the latitude that I could not be far from thatshore. Then, supposing they were not cannibals, yet they might kill me,as many Europeans who had fallen into their hands had been served, evenwhen they had been ten or twenty together--much more I, that was but one,and could make little or no defence; all these things, I say, which Iought to have considered well; and did come into my thoughts afterwards,yet gave me no apprehensions at first, and my head ran mightily upon thethought of getting over to the shore.
Now I wished for my boy Xury, and the long-boat with shoulder-of-muttonsail, with which I sailed above a thousand miles on the coast of Africa;but this was in vain: then I thought I would go and look at our ship'sboat, which, as I have said, was blown up upon the shore a great way, inthe storm, when we were first cast away. She lay almost where she did atfirst, but not quite; and was turned, by the force of the waves and thewinds, almost bottom upward, against a high ridge of beachy, rough sand,but no water about her. If I had had hands to have refitted her, and tohave launched her into the water, the boat would have done well enough,and I might have gone back into the Brazils with her easily enough; but Imight have foreseen that I could no more turn her and set her uprightupon her bottom than I could remove the island; however, I went to thewoods, and cut levers and rollers, and brought them to the boat resolvingto try what I could do; suggesting to myself that if I could but turn herdown, I might repair the damage she had received, and she would be a verygood boat, and I might go to sea in her very easily.
I spared no pains, indeed, in this piece of fruitless toil, and spent, Ithink, three or four weeks about it; at last finding it impossible toheave it up with my little strength, I fell to digging away the sand, toundermine it, and so to make it fall down, setting pieces of wood tothrust and guide it right in the fall.
But when I had done this, I was unable to stir it up again, or to getunder it, much less to move it forward towards the water; so I was forcedto give it over; and yet, though I gave over the hopes of the boat, mydesire to venture over for the main increased, rather than decreased, asthe means for it seemed impossible.
This at length put me upon thinking whether it was not possible to makemyself a canoe, or periagua, such as the natives of those climates make,even without tools, or, as I might say, without hands, of the trunk of agreat tree. This I not only thought possible, but easy, and pleasedmyself extremely with the thoughts of making it, and with my having muchmore convenience for it than any of the negroes or Indians; but not atall considering the particular inconveniences which I lay under more thanthe Indians did--viz. want of hands to move it, when it was made, intothe water--a difficulty much harder for me to surmount than all theconsequences of want of tools could be to them; for what was it to me, ifwhen I had chosen a vast tree in the woods, and with much trouble cut itdown, if I had been able with my tools to hew and dub the outside intothe proper shape of a boat, and burn or cut out the inside to make ithollow, so as to make a boat of it--if, after all this, I must leave itjust there where I found it, and not be able to launch it into the water?
One would have thought I could not have had the least reflection upon mymind of my circumstances while I was making this boat, but I should haveimmediately thought how I should get it into the sea; but my thoughtswere so intent upon my voyage over the sea in it, that I never onceconsidered how I should get it off the land: and it was really, in itsown nature, more easy for me to guide it over forty-five miles of seathan about forty-five fathoms of land, where it lay, to set it afloat inthe water.
I went to work upon this boat the most like a fool that ever man did whohad any of his senses awake. I pleased myself with the design, withoutdetermining whether I was ever able to undertake it; not but that thedifficulty of launching my boat came often into my head; but I put a stopto my inquiries into it by this foolish answer which I gave myself--"Letme first make it; I warrant I will find some way or other to get it alongwhen it is done."
This was a most preposterous method; but the eagerness of my fancyprevailed, and to work I went. I felled a cedar-tree, and I questionmuch whether Solomon ever had such a one for the building of the Templeof Jerusalem; it was five feet ten inches diameter at the lower part nextthe stump, and four feet eleven inches diameter at the end of twenty-twofeet; after which it lessened for a while, and then parted into branches.It was not without infinite labour that I felled this tree; I was twentydays hacking and hewing at it at the bottom; I was fourteen more gettingthe branches and limbs and the vast spreading head cut off, which Ihacked and hewed through with axe and hatchet, and inexpressible labour;after this, it cost me a month to shape it and dub it to a proportion,and to something like the bottom of a boat, that it might swim upright asit ought to do. It cost me near three months more to clear the inside,and work it out so as to make an exact boat of it; this I did, indeed,without fire, by mere mallet and chisel, and by the dint of hard labour,till I had brought it to be a very handsome periagua, and big enough tohave carried six-and-twenty men, and consequently big enough to havecarried me and all my cargo.
When I had gone through this work I was extremely delighted with it. Theboat was really much bigger than ever I saw a canoe or periagua, that wasmade of one tree, in my life. Many a weary stroke it had cost, you maybe sure; and had I gotten it into the water, I make no question, but Ishould have begun the maddest voyage, and the most unlikely to beperformed, that ever was undertaken.
But all my devices to get it into the water failed me; though they costme infinite labour too. It lay about
one hundred yards from the water,and not more; but the first inconvenience was, it was up hill towards thecreek. Well, to take away this discouragement, I resolved to dig intothe surface of the earth, and so make a declivity: this I began, and itcost me a prodigious deal of pains (but who grudge pains who have theirdeliverance in view?); but when this was worked through, and thisdifficulty managed, it was still much the same, for I could no more stirthe canoe than I could the other boat. Then I measured the distance ofground, and resolved to cut a dock or canal, to bring the water up to thecanoe, seeing I could not bring the canoe down to the water. Well, Ibegan this work; and when I began to enter upon it, and calculate howdeep it was to be dug, how broad, how the stuff was to be thrown out, Ifound that, by the number of hands I had, being none but my own, it musthave been ten or twelve years before I could have gone through with it;for the shore lay so high, that at the upper end it must have been atleast twenty feet deep; so at length, though with great reluctancy, Igave this attempt over also.
This grieved me heartily; and now I saw, though too late, the folly ofbeginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly ofour own strength to go through with it.
In the middle of this work I finished my fourth year in this place, andkept my anniversary with the same devotion, and with as much comfort asever before; for, by a constant study and serious application to the Wordof God, and by the assistance of His grace, I gained a differentknowledge from what I had before. I entertained different notions ofthings. I looked now upon the world as a thing remote, which I hadnothing to do with, no expectations from, and, indeed, no desires about:in a word, I had nothing indeed to do with it, nor was ever likely tohave, so I thought it looked, as we may perhaps look upon ithereafter--viz. as a place I had lived in, but was come out of it; andwell might I say, as Father Abraham to Dives, "Between me and thee is agreat gulf fixed."
In the first place, I was removed from all the wickedness of the worldhere; I had neither the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, nor thepride of life. I had nothing to covet, for I had all that I was nowcapable of enjoying; I was lord of the whole manor; or, if I pleased, Imight call myself king or emperor over the whole country which I hadpossession of: there were no rivals; I had no competitor, none to disputesovereignty or command with me: I might have raised ship-loadings ofcorn, but I had no use for it; so I let as little grow as I thoughtenough for my occasion. I had tortoise or turtle enough, but now andthen one was as much as I could put to any use: I had timber enough tohave built a fleet of ships; and I had grapes enough to have made wine,or to have cured into raisins, to have loaded that fleet when it had beenbuilt.
But all I could make use of was all that was valuable: I had enough toeat and supply my wants, and what was all the rest to me? If I killedmore flesh than I could eat, the dog must eat it, or vermin; if I sowedmore corn than I could eat, it must be spoiled; the trees that I cut downwere lying to rot on the ground; I could make no more use of them but forfuel, and that I had no occasion for but to dress my food.
In a word, the nature and experience of things dictated to me, upon justreflection, that all the good things of this world are no farther good tous than they are for our use; and that, whatever we may heap up to giveothers, we enjoy just as much as we can use, and no more. The mostcovetous, griping miser in the world would have been cured of the vice ofcovetousness if he had been in my case; for I possessed infinitely morethan I knew what to do with. I had no room for desire, except it was ofthings which I had not, and they were but trifles, though, indeed, ofgreat use to me. I had, as I hinted before, a parcel of money, as wellgold as silver, about thirty-six pounds sterling. Alas! there the sorry,useless stuff lay; I had no more manner of business for it; and oftenthought with myself that I would have given a handful of it for a grossof tobacco-pipes; or for a hand-mill to grind my corn; nay, I would havegiven it all for a sixpenny-worth of turnip and carrot seed out ofEngland, or for a handful of peas and beans, and a bottle of ink. As itwas, I had not the least advantage by it or benefit from it; but there itlay in a drawer, and grew mouldy with the damp of the cave in the wetseasons; and if I had had the drawer full of diamonds, it had been thesame case--they had been of no manner of value to me, because of no use.
I had now brought my state of life to be much easier in itself than itwas at first, and much easier to my mind, as well as to my body. Ifrequently sat down to meat with thankfulness, and admired the hand ofGod's providence, which had thus spread my table in the wilderness. Ilearned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less uponthe dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed rather than what I wanted;and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot expressthem; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented peoplein mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them,because they see and covet something that He has not given them. All ourdiscontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want ofthankfulness for what we have.
Another reflection was of great use to me, and doubtless would be so toany one that should fall into such distress as mine was; and this was, tocompare my present condition with what I at first expected it would be;nay, with what it would certainly have been, if the good providence ofGod had not wonderfully ordered the ship to be cast up nearer to theshore, where I not only could come at her, but could bring what I got outof her to the shore, for my relief and comfort; without which, I hadwanted for tools to work, weapons for defence, and gunpowder and shot forgetting my food.
I spent whole hours, I may say whole days, in representing to myself, inthe most lively colours, how I must have acted if I had got nothing outof the ship. How I could not have so much as got any food, except fishand turtles; and that, as it was long before I found any of them, I musthave perished first; that I should have lived, if I had not perished,like a mere savage; that if I had killed a goat or a fowl, by anycontrivance, I had no way to flay or open it, or part the flesh from theskin and the bowels, or to cut it up; but must gnaw it with my teeth, andpull it with my claws, like a beast.
These reflections made me very sensible of the goodness of Providence tome, and very thankful for my present condition, with all its hardshipsand misfortunes; and this part also I cannot but recommend to thereflection of those who are apt, in their misery, to say, "Is anyaffliction like mine?" Let them consider how much worse the cases ofsome people are, and their case might have been, if Providence hadthought fit.
I had another reflection, which assisted me also to comfort my mind withhopes; and this was comparing my present situation with what I haddeserved, and had therefore reason to expect from the hand of Providence.I had lived a dreadful life, perfectly destitute of the knowledge andfear of God. I had been well instructed by father and mother; neitherhad they been wanting to me in their early endeavours to infuse areligious awe of God into my mind, a sense of my duty, and what thenature and end of my being required of me. But, alas! falling early intothe seafaring life, which of all lives is the most destitute of the fearof God, though His terrors are always before them; I say, falling earlyinto the seafaring life, and into seafaring company, all that littlesense of religion which I had entertained was laughed out of me by mymessmates; by a hardened despising of dangers, and the views of death,which grew habitual to me by my long absence from all manner ofopportunities to converse with anything but what was like myself, or tohear anything that was good or tended towards it.
So void was I of everything that was good, or the least sense of what Iwas, or was to be, that, in the greatest deliverances I enjoyed--such asmy escape from Sallee; my being taken up by the Portuguese master of theship; my being planted so well in the Brazils; my receiving the cargofrom England, and the like--I never had once the words "Thank God!" somuch as on my mind, or in my mouth; nor in the greatest distress had I somuch as a thought to pray to Him, or so much as to say, "Lord, have mercyupon me!" no, nor to mention the name of God, unless it was to swear by,and blaspheme it.
I had terrible reflections upon my mind for many months, as I havealready observed, on account of my wicked and hardened life past; andwhen I looked about me, and considered what particular providences hadattended me since my coming into this place, and how God had dealtbountifully with me--had not only punished me less than my iniquity haddeserved, but had so plentifully provided for me--this gave me greathopes that my repentance was accepted, and that God had yet mercy instore for me.
With these reflections I worked my mind up, not only to a resignation tothe will of God in the present disposition of my circumstances, but evento a sincere thankfulness for my condition; and that I, who was yet aliving man, ought not to complain, seeing I had not the due punishment ofmy sins; that I enjoyed so many mercies which I had no reason to haveexpected in that place; that I ought never more to repine at mycondition, but to rejoice, and to give daily thanks for that daily bread,which nothing but a crowd of wonders could have brought; that I ought toconsider I had been fed even by a miracle, even as great as that offeeding Elijah by ravens, nay, by a long series of miracles; and that Icould hardly have named a place in the uninhabitable part of the worldwhere I could have been cast more to my advantage; a place where, as Ihad no society, which was my affliction on one hand, so I found noravenous beasts, no furious wolves or tigers, to threaten my life; novenomous creatures, or poisons, which I might feed on to my hurt; nosavages to murder and devour me. In a word, as my life was a life ofsorrow one way, so it was a life of mercy another; and I wanted nothingto make it a life of comfort but to be able to make my sense of God'sgoodness to me, and care over me in this condition, be my dailyconsolation; and after I did make a just improvement on these things, Iwent away, and was no more sad. I had now been here so long that manythings which I had brought on shore for my help were either quite gone,or very much wasted and near spent.
My ink, as I observed, had been gone some time, all but a very little,which I eked out with water, a little and a little, till it was so pale,it scarce left any appearance of black upon the paper. As long as itlasted I made use of it to minute down the days of the month on which anyremarkable thing happened to me; and first, by casting up times past, Iremembered that there was a strange concurrence of days in the variousprovidences which befell me, and which, if I had been superstitiouslyinclined to observe days as fatal or fortunate, I might have had reasonto have looked upon with a great deal of curiosity.
First, I had observed that the same day that I broke away from my fatherand friends and ran away to Hull, in order to go to sea, the same dayafterwards I was taken by the Sallee man-of-war, and made a slave; thesame day of the year that I escaped out of the wreck of that ship inYarmouth Roads, that same day-year afterwards I made my escape fromSallee in a boat; the same day of the year I was born on--viz. the 30thof September, that same day I had my life so miraculously savedtwenty-six years after, when I was cast on shore in this island; so thatmy wicked life and my solitary life began both on a day.
The next thing to my ink being wasted was that of my bread--I mean thebiscuit which I brought out of the ship; this I had husbanded to the lastdegree, allowing myself but one cake of bread a-day for above a year; andyet I was quite without bread for near a year before I got any corn of myown, and great reason I had to be thankful that I had any at all, thegetting it being, as has been already observed, next to miraculous.
My clothes, too, began to decay; as to linen, I had had none a goodwhile, except some chequered shirts which I found in the chests of theother seamen, and which I carefully preserved; because many times I couldbear no other clothes on but a shirt; and it was a very great help to methat I had, among all the men's clothes of the ship, almost three dozenof shirts. There were also, indeed, several thick watch-coats of theseamen's which were left, but they were too hot to wear; and though it istrue that the weather was so violently hot that there was no need ofclothes, yet I could not go quite naked--no, though I had been inclinedto it, which I was not--nor could I abide the thought of it, though I wasalone. The reason why I could not go naked was, I could not bear theheat of the sun so well when quite naked as with some clothes on; nay,the very heat frequently blistered my skin: whereas, with a shirt on, theair itself made some motion, and whistling under the shirt, was twofoldcooler than without it. No more could I ever bring myself to go out inthe heat of the sun without a cap or a hat; the heat of the sun, beatingwith such violence as it does in that place, would give me the headachepresently, by darting so directly on my head, without a cap or hat on, sothat I could not bear it; whereas, if I put on my hat it would presentlygo away.
Upon these views I began to consider about putting the few rags I had,which I called clothes, into some order; I had worn out all thewaistcoats I had, and my business was now to try if I could not makejackets out of the great watch-coats which I had by me, and with suchother materials as I had; so I set to work, tailoring, or rather, indeed,botching, for I made most piteous work of it. However, I made shift tomake two or three new waistcoats, which I hoped would serve me a greatwhile: as for breeches or drawers, I made but a very sorry shift indeedtill afterwards.
I have mentioned that I saved the skins of all the creatures that Ikilled, I mean four-footed ones, and I had them hung up, stretched outwith sticks in the sun, by which means some of them were so dry and hardthat they were fit for little, but others were very useful. The firstthing I made of these was a great cap for my head, with the hair on theoutside, to shoot off the rain; and this I performed so well, that afterI made me a suit of clothes wholly of these skins--that is to say, awaistcoat, and breeches open at the knees, and both loose, for they wererather wanting to keep me cool than to keep me warm. I must not omit toacknowledge that they were wretchedly made; for if I was a bad carpenter,I was a worse tailor. However, they were such as I made very good shiftwith, and when I was out, if it happened to rain, the hair of mywaistcoat and cap being outermost, I was kept very dry.
After this, I spent a great deal of time and pains to make an umbrella; Iwas, indeed, in great want of one, and had a great mind to make one; Ihad seen them made in the Brazils, where they are very useful in thegreat heats there, and I felt the heats every jot as great here, andgreater too, being nearer the equinox; besides, as I was obliged to bemuch abroad, it was a most useful thing to me, as well for the rains asthe heats. I took a world of pains with it, and was a great while beforeI could make anything likely to hold: nay, after I had thought I had hitthe way, I spoiled two or three before I made one to my mind: but at lastI made one that answered indifferently well: the main difficulty I foundwas to make it let down. I could make it spread, but if it did not letdown too, and draw in, it was not portable for me any way but just overmy head, which would not do. However, at last, as I said, I made one toanswer, and covered it with skins, the hair upwards, so that it cast offthe rain like a pent-house, and kept off the sun so effectually, that Icould walk out in the hottest of the weather with greater advantage thanI could before in the coolest, and when I had no need of it could closeit, and carry it under my arm.
Thus I lived mighty comfortably, my mind being entirely composed byresigning myself to the will of God, and throwing myself wholly upon thedisposal of His providence. This made my life better than sociable, forwhen I began to regret the want of conversation I would ask myself,whether thus conversing mutually with my own thoughts, and (as I hope Imay say) with even God Himself, by ejaculations, was not better than theutmost enjoyment of human society in the world?